Setsubun: Bean Throwing Festival

This past weekend, we celebrated Setsubun. It is a festival tied to the Lunar (Chinese) New Year. It is supposed to mark the seasonal division between winter and spring. Although, I'm pretty sure winter is still here.

Many shrines throughout Kyoto and Japan held special events/rituals over the weekend. Most of the Setsubun activities are intended to cleanse evil from the past year, to drive away demons that bring evil and to bring good luck for the new year ahead.

At Yasaka Jinja, a famous shrine in the Gion region, they began their Setsubun rites with Maiko dances. Four colorfully adorned maikos (apprentice geishas) performed a beautiful and very graceful dance with fans.

Afterwards, the maikos joined with the priests of the shrine for mamemaki, or bean scattering. They threw small white packets of dried soybeans into the crowd. Due to my good placement in the crowd and my relative height advantage, I caught two packets! During the bean throwing we were supposed to shout "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" which means "Demons out! Luck in!"

According to one of my students, for those that catch the dried beans, it is customary to eat one soybean for each year in your age. This is part of "bringing the luck in." Another way to start the new year's luck is to buy raffle tickets and see what prizes you win. At Yasaka Jinja, we won a bottle of sake and some tofu soup mix. I'm hoping that the online raffle for Yoshida Jinja goes a little better for us. :)

At Yoshida Jinja, a shrine near Kyoto University, they celebrated Setsubun on both Saturday and Sunday. This was especially exciting because it meant that the nearby streets would be lined with carnival style booths selling foods, games, toys, etc... for the entire weekend. Highlights from these booths include things like tako-yaki (Octopus balls), Sweet Potato sticks (slightly sweet and thick fries), Yakisoba (a delicious noodle dish) and Choco-bananas on sticks!

On Saturday, Yoshida Jinja had an event called Tsuina-shiki. Spectators lined up on both sides of a path through the central area of the shrine. Then, there was a procession with priests, children carrying torches, priestesses, archers and three demons. One demon was red, another was blue and the third one was yellow. Each carried a large weapon and ran down the path pausing to growl and scare children. A few kids were crying, but mostly everyone was having a great time! Then, a priest, dressed as a red-masked God representing luck, comes and "scares" the demons away. Again with the Demons Out, Luck in theme.

On Sunday, there was a "Fire Invocation" called Karosai at 11:00pm. This was simply amazing!

To begin with, there is a giant cylindrical cage nearly 8 meters tall. This cage is filled with all sorts of good luck items. For example, people threw in strips of paper with wishes/good luck messages written on them. Also included were wooden prayer cards accumulated at the shrine over the past year, amulets, good luck charms, small Daruma dolls, rakes with faces of the Luck Gods on them and at least one giant stuffed tiger!

Then, this cage was blessed by a priest and priestess using a paper-covered branch and ceremonial bells respectively. After the blessing, they set the entire thing on fire! As you can imagine the fire was huge, very bright and very warm. Being lucky enough to get a front row spot, I got to warm my toes very effectively! It was really fun.

And... yes Moms, it was safe. Kyoto firemen were there, in fabulous silver uniforms, spraying water on the sparks that ventured too close to neighboring trees.